Thursday, 17 October 2013

Thoughts behind the Tennis look. StrCrd Day 3.

I find myself interested in a gang of 'decadent and hedonistic' artists and writers formed in the mid 19th century called the Aesthetic Movement.
What interests me in this movement is what they believed. They believed that one's taste in all things is paramount, that art held no moral or didactic purpose, but should be simply beautiful, and in a manner reward the viewer with a pleasure solely drawn from aesthetics.

Interesting? Well I think so. Days leading up to StrCrd were exciting but day 3 even more so. I say this because I believe our heads were wrapped around a similar school of thought, a school of thought that can be aligned with that of the Aesthetic Movement, which is "Art for Art's sake".

Simple beauty. Pleasured viewer.

What we wore to StrCrd was an idea. An idea of what we thought we would want to look like if we were tennis players. We wore tennis outfits on that day because 24 hours prior to that day we were inspired. Inspired by beauty and simplicity of tennis. Beauty drawn from Moeti and Lazarus Fume of the Black Photo Album by Santu Mofekeng and tennis racket installations by Ali of A Noble Savage.

Our purpose? Well unlike many of our past conceptual looks and outfits that aimed at challenging socially per-conceived ideas of what people are meant to act and look like, this outfit was different. It was us having fun, entertaining ourselves at an event that was supposed to entertain us...it was us being beautiful and I guess from the response we got, the viewer was rewarded with some pleasure. And to that we are pleased.

So maybe the Aesthetic movement had something going, Art for Art's Sake.